Confirmations, reminders and changes

Every appointment in Ringhum sends messages automatically. It does not matter whether the assistant booked it on a call or in a chat, a customer booked it on your booking page, or you added it by hand. The customer gets a confirmation straight away and a reminder the day before. They are told when the appointment moves or is cancelled. Your team is kept informed as well.

How messages reach the customer

Each customer message can go out in two ways:

• By email, when the appointment has the customer's email address. Confirmation, reschedule and reminder emails include a calendar file (appointment.ics) that adds the appointment to the customer's calendar in one tap.
• By text, when your workspace can text the customer. If the customer wrote to your WhatsApp number in the last 24 hours, the text goes on WhatsApp. Otherwise it goes by SMS from a number that is approved for texting.

When both are possible, the customer gets both. When neither is possible, no message is sent, and the appointment is still booked.

Sending SMS is included in the Solo, Team and Scale plans and needs a number approved for texting. See Text messaging (SMS). On the Starter plan, customers get emails, plus WhatsApp messages when they recently wrote to you there.

Tip: Ask for an email address. The assistant asks for it when it books and spells it back, and the confirmation email is the only message that carries the calendar file.

What the customer receives

Confirmation, reschedule and reminder messages tell the customer to reply or call you to make a change. The emails show What, When (with the time zone), With (the staff member, if any) and Where. Where is the address of the appointment's location, or your business address from Company → Profile. If you have a public phone number on your profile, the email says to call it for changes. If your booking page is on, the email also has a Book another time button.

Emails carry your company name. On plans with email branding, they also carry your logo, colours and wording. See Email branding.

Reminders

Reminders go out automatically about 24 hours before the start time. There is nothing to switch on. Ringhum checks every 30 minutes for appointments that start between 23 and 25 hours from now.

• Each appointment gets one reminder.
• Moving an appointment resets its reminder, so the customer is reminded of the new time.
• Only scheduled and confirmed appointments are reminded. Cancelled ones are not.
• An appointment booked less than about 23 hours ahead gets no reminder, because its reminder time has already passed. The confirmation covers it.

The appointment's details under Appointments show Notified with the time of the confirmation and "reminder sent" once the reminder has gone out.

Changing and cancelling

From the dashboard. Open the appointment under Appointments:

1. To move it, pick a new date and time under Reschedule and click Move. You can also click one of the suggested free times. The customer gets a "rescheduled" message.
2. To cancel it, click Cancel and confirm. The customer gets a cancellation message.
3. Mark confirmed, Completed and No-show only change the status. They send nothing to the customer.

Note: When you cancel from the dashboard, the reason sent to the customer is "Cancelled by" followed by your name.

By the customer. Customers change bookings by calling or messaging you. When Book appointments is on for the assistant, it can find the caller's upcoming appointments by the phone number they are calling or writing from, and move or cancel them. The same messages go out as when you do it yourself.

What your team receives

Every member who has Appointments switched on under Settings → Notifications gets an email and an in-app notification when an appointment is booked, rescheduled or cancelled. The notification links to the appointment.

The same events are also:

• sent to your webhooks as appointment.booked, appointment.rescheduled and appointment.cancelled,
• sent to connected apps that receive appointment events,
• written to connected calendars that accept bookings, such as Google Calendar.

To see all appointments in your own calendar app, use Appointments → Calendar feed and subscribe to the link from Google, Apple or Outlook. Each appointment also has a Download .ics link.

Common questions

The customer did not get a text. Check that the appointment has a phone number and that your workspace has a number approved for texting, or that the customer wrote to you on WhatsApp in the last 24 hours. A customer who replied STOP no longer gets texts.

The customer did not get an email. The appointment needs an email address. You can see it in the appointment details. Ask the customer to check their spam folder.

Can I turn off reminders or change when they are sent? No. Reminders always go out about 24 hours ahead, by the same channels as the confirmation.

Do test calls send confirmations? Bookings made on a test call follow the same rules as real ones, so use your own phone number and email when you test.